[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Acrobat]

We were discussing whether evolutionary biology was unscientific.  Or different, even, from what parts of biology you do accept.

Is a hypothesis, both consistent with theory and consistent with observations....but unverifiable due to lack of a time machine....

......unscientific....?

In what way, specifically?  Additionally, how does that tie in with literal and non literal interpretations in your beliefs?

You're discussing whether evolutionary biology is unscientific. I'm discussing Acrobat's question of how to choose between competing explanations for things such as sacrifice, and whether choosing anything at all is cherry picking; my answer is that you can't choose between such explanations and often "cherry picking" is what's done.

Verifiability is the soul of a hypothesis, not consistency. If a hypothesis requires a time machine to test it, and instead you lean on how consistant it is with theory, that's unscientific.

How about explanatory power? Is that unscientific? If there's a variety of explanations for "sacrifice", the explanations that holds the greater explanatory power, able to make sense of the pieces better, is the preferable one to hold, at least as a hypothesis? The strong the observations and expectations align with it, the more we can be certain about it. 



Explanatory power is the ability of a hypothesis or theory to effectively explain the subject matter it pertains to. The opposite of explanatory power is explanatory impotence.
In the past, various criteria or measures for explanatory power have been proposed. In particular, one hypothesis, theory, or explanation can be said to have more explanatory power than another about the same subject matter

• if more facts or observations are accounted for;
  
  
• if it changes more "surprising facts" into "a matter of course" (following Peirce);
  
  
• if more details of causal relations are provided, leading to a high accuracy and precision of the description;
  
  
• if it offers greater predictive power, i.e., if it offers more details about what we should expect to see, and what we should not;
  
  
• if it depends less on authorities and more on observations;
  
  
• if it makes fewer assumptions;
  
  
• if it is more falsifiable, i.e., more testable by observation or experiment (following Popper). -wiki
  

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But why assume he would include it? Maybe he thought you'd be smart enough to simply take the text as a literal account of creation. What makes your version more reasonable than mine?

When people have something they perceive as miraculous, a vision from God, God speaking to them, visions of heaven, hell, etc... They indicate that, not so much for the sake of adding credibility to what they're saying, but to share that they had such a profound experience.

If the author of Genesis had such an experience why would they not have shared it? Why would they have kept it to themselves? Now maybe you'll get creative and offer an explanation, but do you actually think that was the case? Or are you just throwing it out as a possibility?

Who knows? It could be one none of us are even aware of? Maybe the original meaning of the text was lost long, long ago? My point is, how do you know?

I don't know if there's an unknown better explanation than the theory of evolution, that in the future might be discovered and falsify it. But this unknown doesn't cause me to stop believing in the theory of evolution.

Well, you are though. You're constantly coming up with your own interpretations of things every time you read something. That interpretation was unknown to you until you developed it. So the question is, how did you develop the interpretation and what makes you think that interpretation is valid versus someone else's?

Sure, i read it and form an interpretation the same way I read what you wrote and form an interpretation of what you're communicating. If other people hold different interpretations, than I might go out and explore them, perhaps they make better sense of the over all context, are aware of some historical factors at the time I wasn't aware of, or had a better grasp of original language, etc...Sometime more than one interpretation sounds equally reasonable, and I can't decide between the two. Sometimes I realize my initial interpretation was wrong.

If in you only want to discuss interpretations you've already developed, then sure. But even then, how are you deciding which interpretation fits the information better?

I decide it based on explanatory power, which one takes into account the context and history better, the overall passage etc... Which one answers more questions than it raises. Sometimes two sides can have equally compelling arguments, in which a decision is not easy to come by.